


The Devil in the Details

by Hornet394



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cults, HELLA lot of original characters but dont worry a lot of them dont matter, M/M, Murder, Religious Fanaticism, Rough Sex, Suspected Rape, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 11:37:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11782347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hornet394/pseuds/Hornet394
Summary: The bodies are stacking up, and Detective Byun is racing against the clock to put a stop to this cult of serial killers.  Enter Yixing and his iridescent eyes, very much like Baekhyun’s own.





	The Devil in the Details

**Author's Note:**

> I completed this fic in one month oh wow o.0 Thank you to my lovely friends for letting me bounce off ideas without judging me, and thanks so much to my one and only beta for enduring my 10 minute audio note rants in the rain over messenger (hearteu) Lastly thank you thank you thank you PROMPTER for this LOVELY prompt it was such an amazing experience to write this and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Btw this fic takes creative liberties from hannibal so don't sue me pls)
> 
> Written for @exo_mythologyAU, prompt #35!

Another sunrise, another bloody day.

“Byun,” the Director says sternly, “This is the third case this month. Can your team tackle it, or not?”

“Sir, I need more-”

“You’ve told me this every time!” the Director thunders, startling Baekhyun. “I need more than that! If you can’t give me a satisfied answer next time, I’ll have you replaced!”

Baekhyun’s heart drops to the bottom of his stomach. “Sir-”

The Director points to the door. “Leave, Byun. I need results, not your excuses. Eyes on the floor.”

Baekhyun bows his head, knowing how much the Director hated it when Baekhyun engaged in eye contact with him. The Director had described Baekhyun’s eyes as ‘haunting’, after all. Baekhyun turns on his heel, marching out of the office. He resists the urge to slam the door.

“Detective Byun?” Baekhyun turns around abruptly to see a young police officer standing next to him. "I'm your deputy for this case. The autopsy is out."

"Yes," Baekhyun sighs. "Lead the way—I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name."

"Kim Jongcheol!" The officer bursts out. "Pleased to meet you, sir!"

"Pleased to meet you too, Officer Kim," Baekhyun grinds out. "Please, lead the way."

Baekhyun soon overtakes the officer as he strides along the winding corridors of the station, making Officer Kim Jongcheol quickly scurry along to catch up.

Doctor Zhang Yuxia is there in the autopsy room, tossing her pen up and down. She's about to open her mouth, likely to say something smart and unnecessary, but Baekhyun cuts her off. "Not today, Yuxia. Just give me the rundown."

Zhang Yuxia sticks her tongue out immaturely, but stands and walks towards the table in the middle of the room, pulling a white cloth back. The Chinese doctor had entered the force about the same time Baekhyun had, and they’ve long gotten used to each other and how they each operated. 

Baekhyun can faintly hear Kim Jongcheol gagging behind him, but Baekhyun isn't fazed. Any other detective would grimace at such a reaction from a cadet, but Baekhyun had had a similar reaction when he had first gotten put on the case, and he had already worked in the force for 10 years.

He's seen much worse in the span of 30 days, too much to care.

"This one is fairly obvious," Yuxia says. "Completely white skin, blackened limbs, multiple occurrences of bladder failure. His heart stopped more than two weeks ago. If we had found him ten days ago, maybe we could have revived him."

"What about his leg?" Baekhyun motions at the empty space on the table. "When did it get removed?"

"Likely before," Yuxia says, pointing to the body's hip bone, where his right leg should have been attached. "See here? This was cut off cleanly, likely with heat, and then frozen—if they had cut it off after he froze, the skin would already have twisted, the muscles contracted and dead, not allowing such a clean cut."

Baekhyun holds a hand backward, and Jongcheol quickly places the file in his hands.

"Kim Mansu," Baekhyun reads aloud, looking at the lively, lanky boy in the photo. "Still a high school student?"

"A waste of youth," Yuxia barks in amusement, also deprecatingly. "Catch them, Baekhyun," She says gravely, looking to the shrine of the Justice God, Kai, in the corner of the room, "or our whole city will be in danger."

"No god can save us now, especially now that they're all dead," Baekhyun mutters. "Funny, really, that we will start believing in gods after they die as mortals, precisely because we stopped believing in them in the first place."

Yuxia gives him an odd look. “Humanity was blessed when the gods decided to walk amongst us as men,” She disagrees. “The entire justice system would not be in place if not for Kai.”

“He died a human,” Baekhyun growls. “Kim Jongin died. There are no more gods we can turn to, just ourselves.”

//

Baekhyun and Jongcheol arrive at the scene of discovery, half an hour later.

"Detective Byun!" A voice calls from behind the police tape. "Is it the Butchers?"

"Detective Byun!" A higher, more feminine voice shrieks. "How does this murder reflect on the police?"

"Detective Byun!" From somewhere else, "The public needs answers!"

Jongcheol seems to be momentarily shocked by the sheer amount of media surrounding the crime scene, but Baekhyun just strides right into the sealed off warehouse, then into the elevator.

The owner of the freezer unit is standing to a side, shivering. The cold air of the freezer unit can be felt from outside the room, dispersing into the corridor they are standing in.

Nodding to the police officers standing guard, Baekhyun takes the big coat the officers provide him, and then enters the freezer unit. It's a relatively small one, and packed with frozen meat. It would fit around four people at once, perhaps five if they crammed. Kim Mansu had died right behind the door, likely kneeling against it, calling for help and then curling up in his last moments.

The forensics have already come and gone, leaving the room dotted with white placards reading numbers on them, as well as the white chalk outline of the deceased.

Jongcheol is absolutely swallowed by the huge coat, but he's still trembling from the cold.

There's not much to see in the freezer unit—there's no blood, and no socket for any cutter using heat as Yuxia had estimated. It's apparent that the removal of the limb had occurred elsewhere, and then Mansu had been transported here to die. If Baekhyun misses anything now, the forensics will fill him in—after all, that's what they're here for.

The owner of the freezer unit is a robust, middle-aged man with a regular, easily forgettable face. Mr. Park owns a butcher's shop down at High Street, but his main income lies in acting as a distributor of meat to the other butcher shops in the High Street wet market. That's where this freezer unit comes into play—his goods are stored here.

"Sir, I swear, I wasn't in town the past few days, I don't know anything about this!" He quickly stammers when Baekhyun approaches.

"Where were you?" Baekhyun asks, shedding the coat. Jongcheol immediately takes it off and scurries to return it to the officer standing by the door.

"I was negotiating with a Mansk's factory for their processed meat." The man swallows. "I was sleeping in the employee's dormitory for the whole week. My keys were with me the whole time!"

"Who else has the keys to this place?" Baekhyun asks, mentally making a note to check this man's alibi, if it hasn't been checked. If it hasn't been checked yet, Baekhyun will need to have words with Jongcheol and his men.

"There's a set at the shop," the man says frantically. "Only I and my apprentice, Myungdae, have the keys to the shop."

Jongcheol hands Baekhyun a note. Myungdae was reported missing by his parents two days ago.

Baekhyun gives it a quick glance and crunches the paper up. "Mr Park, do you know your apprentice has been missing for 48 hours?"

"Ano- another officer told me," Mr. Park swallows. "But Myungdae wouldn't betray me, would he?"

"Interesting assessment." Baekhyun quickly leaps on it. "Why would you think Myungdae had betrayed you? Couldn't he have been kidnapped by the culprits?"

"Officer," Mr. Park turns white, "the Butchers don't kidnap. They only kill."

The man seems to falter, then, but Baekhyun doesn't make a move to help him. There's a reason why he's the one put on the case, and that reason is his image for not being weak and cautious.

"Besides," Mr Park continues without prompting, "I haven't been back here for months. Myungdae is the one in charge of transporting the meat every morning, everything always goes smoothly so I just... left it all to him. Myungdae had run with the wrong gang, before he started working for me. The boy's been in and out of correctional institutes his whole life. I thought he had changed, that I could help him, that's why I took him in..."

"Thank you for your cooperation," Baekhyun says, when Mr. Park trails off.

Back in the office, he pieces everything together.

Kim Mansu was reported missing two weeks ago by his parents. Mr. Park was the one to discover his dead body, after receiving a call from one of his customer's, stating that the meat hadn't arrived on time. This warehouse is one that is located quite far away from the main highway, making it an unpopular place to rent out for business, but perfect for a crime scene. None of the other tenants had gone on that floor for the past two weeks. There were no security cameras—nothing of value was in the building. There were only three security guards that were hired at the reception, each of them working eight hour shifts—the police had quickly established that they had spotted nothing. Choi Myungdae is the main suspect, and he is suspected to be a member of the new serial killing cult, the Butchers.

Kim Mansu was the third death.

The first, Kim Jonghye, was a mother of three and of the child actor, Kim Euitae. She had been found during the morning, tied to the lightning conductor of the school she had been employed in, as a piano teacher. Not crucified, but trussed up like a chicken.

Yuxia's autopsy of her had revealed that she had died of electrocution, and tied to the lightning conductor post-mortem. There had been a huge char mark over her heart, likely made by a normal, skin-penetrating taser, reworked to pulse for over three seconds in order to make the kill. From day one, it had been more than clear that this was a murder, and anyone who had any doubts could just look to her mouth, where her tongue was missing. Torn out, root and all, before she had been killed. Her husband, Im Sungjoo, disappeared the same day.

The second, Wu Shiyi, was half-Korean, half-Chinese. His mother, Oh Sanghee, had made a ruckus on national television, and it was then that the rumours of the Butchers had taken flight.

The poor boy was in the height of his prime, 27 years old, rising steadily in the ranks of the media company he had worked in. He had a steady girlfriend and everything. There wasn't even a body for Yuxia to autopsy, just four limbs, a bloody heart, and a head still connected to the whole entire spine, the bones and nerves just ripped out brutally.

One of his co-workers, Ha Eunhye, was arrested as the prime suspect. She had then hung herself in the holding cell, but Baekhyun had easily identified it as a murder, or an assisted suicide, as the cloth she had hung herself with was definitely brought in from outside. This more than confirmed the existence of a serial killing group, not just one killer.

Moreover, her hands hardly fit the fingerprints around the remaining part of Shiyi's neck. She had only been arrested on the grounds that she had been caught by a security camera carrying an unconscious—perhaps even dead—Shiyi across the carpark of the building where they worked, and it was her car that had been spotted one hour away from town, driving into a large, open field of the suburbs, and mounted Shiyi’s limbs on a scarecrow. The farmer that first saw it in his backyard, died of a heart attack.

The media had dubbed the culprits ‘the Butchers’ from their habit of taking trophies. What a macabre name, really. While Baekhyun did not like people in general, he would hardly compare the victims of this case to swine.

It was more than clear than Myungdae had helped in the murder, if he himself hadn't been the one to lock the poor boy in the room. Why two weeks, however? Myungdae's deliveries hadn't stopped until yesterday, which meant he had intentionally vanished on that particular day to expose the body. Secondly, they had taken Kim Mansu's right leg—what for? They had taken Kim Jonghye's tongue, Wu Shiyi's body—what did these body parts signify?

Baekhyun growls in frustration, resisting the urge to punch the wall next to the corkboard, like idiots do in TV shows. Nothing is leading to any sort of conclusion Baekhyun can draw. In his ten odd years as a Detective, he has never faced a case like this before.

And time is never on Baekhyun's side.

Choi Myungdae is the only link Baekhyun has, but he seems to have just evaporated into thin air. Baekhyun's even contacted justice departments overseas, but Choi Myungdae is just nowhere to be seen.

Then Do Kunsun's case is broadcasted all over the news, and Baekhyun is called to the Director's office.

"I gave you an ultimatum, Byun," the Director says coldly. "You're off the case. Take a long vacation, Byun. Go somewhere else."

"Director," Baekhyun grits his teeth, "let someone take charge, but please don't take me off the case!"

"Do you want me to fire you, Byun Baekhyun?" The Director yells. "Get the hell out of the station!"

"Director!" Baekhyun growls back. "This case needs every person it can get!"

"Not you, Byun Baekhyun." The Director grits his teeth, "You're not needed at work tomorrow. Now get out before I have you arrested for trespassing."

Baekhyun closes his eyes painfully, and when he opens it, turns on his heel and throws open the door.

"Wait, Byun," The Director's voice is cold and heartless. "Leave your gun."

Baekhyun rips his entire gun holster off and throws it onto the Director's desk, scrunching up some of the papers lying on the desk. "I'll see myself out, Director," he spits.

The door swings shut with an echoing thud, and Jongcheol stares up at Baekhyun in fright. "Detective?" The young cadet says testily, "Are we going to-"

"I'm off the case," Baekhyun interrupts, then sighs.

"What?" Jongcheol yelps, "You- you're the best we have! If you're off-"

"The culprit is still out there, Officer Kim," Baekhyun interrupts again, feeling oddly relieved at having Jongcheol here. "The enforcement of justice will still go on, even if I'm not on the case. As long as _someone_ is on the case, we'll catch them."

Jongcheol seems touched, judging by the way he immediately salutes Baekhyun with a grateful look on his face.

Baekhyun used to be this enthusiastic, too, when he had just entered the police force. A few big cases and Baekhyun had made himself a name as a young and rising detective. Now, his enthusiasm had turned into a stubbornness to put the guilty behind bars, while fending off administrative and bureaucratic nightmares. This time, they got to him.

That doesn’t mean Baekhyun will let this stop him, though. Not to be egotistical, but there is simply no detective who is better than Baekhyun in the country, unless they borrow from the capital.

Mind made up, he turns to Jongcheol. “Take me to the crime scene,” he intones. Jongcheol blinks, but then nods quickly.

Baekhyun has Jongcheol drop him off a block off, so if things go wrong, no one can blame Jongcheol. The crime scene is one of the rooms in a family manor, a few roads off from the main road. Pretty close to the center of the city, but still off the track enough.

The victim is Do Kunsun, an author that was on the charts a few years ago because of her autobiography, “Not yet a Demigod”, claiming that she was the descendent of the Land God. Or rather, she could trace her own roots back to the man Do Kyungsoo, the mortal name of the Land God after he had lost his immortality.

He had just ducked into the police tape when the forensics team comes out of the manor. 

"Detective Byun!" The officer at the back exclaims. "We missed you earlier!"

"Paperwork," Baekhyun mumbles, trying to remember the officer's name. "Was it a fruitful investigation?"

"The usual." The officer sighs. "These people were born to be criminals."

Baekhyun frowns.

"We can't find the murder weapon." The officer scratches his head, continuing, "Without that we can't even be sure of how, exactly the whole thing took place. But you must be able to see more than we did, Detective Byun, I shouldn't keep you, I have to pick up my daughter from school anyway."

"Thank you, officer," Baekhyun dips his head and walks briskly towards Do Kunsun's office.

"Detective Byun?" The lone officer outside the door frowns. "Weren't you removed from the case?"

"You know me," Baekhyun scratches his head awkwardly, and before the officer can say anything else, Baekhyun lashes out, hitting the man on the forehead.

Guiltily, Baekhyun catches the cadet when he falls so that he doesn't hit his head. Pushing open the door, the first thing he notices is the pungent smell of blood.

Then, a sudden, "Hi."

"Who's there!" He whips around, and his hands automatically reach for his gun holster, but the hand slides off the side of his hip. A cold chill runs up his body at the reminder that his last defense had been taken away.

"I'm a friend." The man steps closer into the light, emerging from the far corner of the room, hands up in surrender. "My name is Zhang Yixing. I know what you're here for, and I want to help you."

Baekhyun narrows his eyes. "How did you get in here?" he demands.

"I walked in," Yixing smiles, and Baekhyun can see two deep dimples on his cheeks. "I walked in, just like you."

Baekhyun looks at the man, properly, and he is immediately enraptured by those two orbs that stare back at him. Clear, bright, iridescent, very similar to the pair of eyes that stare back at Baekhyun when he looks into the mirror.

Haunting, the Director had called them.

Baekhyun shakes away the sense of deja vu, and he turns to observe this man with eyes just like his own. A little bit taller than Baekhyun, but not that much. Lean body, simple clothes, looking quite harmless.

But he had bypassed even the officers at the door and had just _come in_.

Baekhyun really wishes he had his gun. "I'm here to help you, Detective Byun," Yixing smiles brightly.

Baekhyun narrows his eyes. "If you know that," he says tersely, "then you must know I am no longer a detective for this case."

"Yes," Yixing chirps. "And that is why you will not call the police."

Baekhyun sighs. "How do you want to help?" He's not going to ask the why.

"Do you trust me?"

"No."

"Thought so," Yixing's smile turns into a smirk. "But listen to me."

"Go ahead," Baekhyun sighs again.

"The people you are facing are not... normal," Yixing says. "They are highly logical, highly intelligent, highly purposeful. To figure out their tracks, to figure out their clues, you have to become them."

Baekhyun's eyes narrow dangerously.

"Not literally," Yixing shrugs. "But here, right now, recreate the scene."

"How?" Baekhyun asks.

"Close your eyes," Yixing whispers, and Baekhyun is hypnotized, obeying. "You're one of the Butchers. You have a plan. You're here to kill Do Kunsun, a female philanthropist. How did you break in?"

"I didn't," Baekhyun murmurs. "One of her servants let us in. We walked in through the front door."

"Yes," Yixing says. "You walk in through the front door. What happens?"

"The servant leads us to where Do Kunsun is," Baekhyun says, opening his eyes. The corridor is now lit by sunlight, there's a short girl walking in front of him. The girl’s nervous, she’s betraying her own Mistress. He follows her down the corridor, turns a left, and then a right.

He enters Do Kunsun's office. Do Kunsun is at her desk, and she looks up in alarm. She calls for help, but the servant that had let Baekhyun is has already closed the door. She's quickly restrained and tied to her table.

"How?" A breathy voice echoes in Baekhyun's brain.

Baekhyun takes a step forward, and Do Kunsun is trembling. He turns her head to face the bookshelves, feet pointing to the dresser, as indicated from how she had been found the next morning, but it feels wrong. He flips her around, and brings a blade down onto her right arm.

There.

A small cut into the wood where Baekhyun had been overzealous, and blood pools out. But they flip her around, and then Baekhyun looks around. A paperweight, the shape of it not known, but it is heavy and solid, extravagant as all the things in Do Kunsun's house are. When he removes the paperweight, the thick stack of papers go flying, toppling over the side of the table.

But that is not in his area of concern—it doesn't matter if the papers are lost. Instead, Baekhyun brings the paperweight down, once, twice, thrice just to be thorough. Over, and over, and over, and over again, just to be very, very thorough.

The paperweight is heavy. When Baekhyun's done, he has to rest for a while, panting from exertion. He is covered by blood and bone fragments, and it seeps into his clothes, seeps into the carpet.

But his work is done here. He operated alone, tonight. He takes the paperweight with him as he leaves.

His eyes snap open, and there is light dancing in Yixing’s eyes.

“Well, what did you see?” Yixing asks.

“Everything,” Baekhyun breathes out.

“I knew you would,” Yixing smiles, his eyes crinkling up. “You have the eyes for it, after all.”

Once he gets home, Baekhyun pulls a paper and pad over, trying to write down everything he knows about the Butchers. They’re organized. They only take their decapacitating tools inside. Any murder weapon, that is taken from the inside, is taken outside if possible. They work in a group. They often have members, or accomplices that are close to the crime scene, not necessarily close to the victim, judging by Kim Mansu’s case in the storage facility.

He goes out for the next few days, getting his old contacts to get him a gun. He doesn’t feel safe without a weapon with him, but guns are highly restricted. He settles with a taser for now, until he can get some firearms.

He also gets a list of Do Kunsun’s servants, most of which have already been cycled back into the labour market. The police must have gone through them once, but if one of them is a Butcher, they’re not going to succumb to regular police interrogations.

But before Baekhyun can do anything about it, a headline on the news catches his attention.

//

Yixing is already there in Kim Joochan's apartment. Baekhyun, with his new gun, had just pretended to be one of the press and circled around the building, until he found the fire escape and just snuck in through the window of the empty apartment next door. Sloppy work, really. Yixing just smiles at him, and gestures to the door. Baekhyun obediently knocks out the policeman standing guard just in case, and heads back in.

“The guy’s in the bathtub,” Yixing says. “Though, you might find it more useful to take the role of the victim, instead of the killer this time.”

Baekhyun turns around, but decides against talking to Yixing again. He’s seen the news, he knows it’s a fairly simple case. This is an old apartment building, an aging building. Security is non-existent, the Butchers could have easily walked in. Kim Joochan is just a regular working class man, having a job as a freelance electrician, working night shifts in the convenience store just down the street. Not quite successful, but hardworking, using his own money to feed himself and his two cats.

The cats have been taken away, of course. Baekhyun had seen their photos; they were beautiful cats. Joochan must have loved them very much.

Baekhyun walks towards Joochan’s bedroom first. The guy’s in the bathroom, yes, but the bedroom is where he was taken. It’s clear by the complete mess the room is in, overturned and ransacked. Yixing follows Baekhyun inside, and they step over the fallen drawers and clothes.

Baekhyun closes his eyes.

He’s playing with his cats—the bed is covered with cat fur, but he doesn’t mind. Both of them are so lovely. The orange cat doesn’t move around much, just curls up on Joochan’s pillow, watching them. The brown tabby kitten is waving her tail around, chasing after Joochan’s closed fist with her treat hidden inside.

Someone kicks his front door open, destroying the lock. Alarmed, Baekhyun immediately picks up his cats, putting them in their cage and into the balcony, covering them with a heavy blanket. Both of them will be none the wiser as to what happens next.

Before he can defend himself, the bedroom door is kicked open next. He tries to fight back, he’s quite fit from all the labour he does, and he does put up a fight for a few moments, but they overpower him by sheer numbers and drag him out of the bedroom.

Baekhyun keeps his eyes closed, and Yixing’s put his hands on Baekhyun’s shoulder, guiding him into the bathroom.

It’s a simple bathroom, simple plumbing, simple facilities. The bathtub is a shower bath, a bit dirty and yellow from frequent use, but replacing it has never been his top priority. There’s some cat stuff propped along the sides of the sink, and he only hopes they’ll let the two poor cats alone.

They don’t give him any window to struggle, to scream. The bathtub has already been filled, and they just throw him in. Water sloshes over the side of the bathtub and onto the tiled floor, but there are hands pressing him down, keeping his head underneath the water. He’s just a normal man, and he struggles, and struggles, until water floods into his lungs, and oxygen flows out, and out, until he is unconscious, his body seized up, his eyes wide and glassy.

Right before he truly dies, A knife is brought down on his neck, and then Baekhyun’s connection with Joochan is gone.

Baekhyun’s eyes snap open, and he’s panting like he’s just run a marathon.

The bathroom is covered with blood. Most of the bloodied water had spilled out onto the white tiles, staining them yellowish auburn.

The reporter had said the Butchers had cut his head off, along with his entire spine. “We won’t find much in here,” Baekhyun says. “Let’s go back to the bedroom.”

Now that they have a proper look, Baekhyun spots all the scattered books, many more put haphazardly on the bookshelves. The guy’s not a collector—all of these books are dog-eared and old, clearly having been flipped through a lot of times.

"This guy was a god fanatic," Baekhyun mutters, reading the names on the spines of the books. "Just look at the sheer amount of books on gods, here."

"I've always found the attention funny," Yixing muses. "None of you found the gods interesting when they were immortal, when they were holy and aloof. Instead, they're interesting when they become human and take human names, commit human sins, die human deaths."

Baekhyun shrugs. Pretty much only the police stations still worship the Justice God Kai, but that’s a formality more than anything. Kim Jongin had been the first established police officer, after all.

Baekhyun looks around the room again, and, at the corner of his eye, spots the crooked angle the bedside table is in. It’s far too mild to have been knocked over by a fight, and it looks too deliberate to have been an accident. His first thought is that the cats might have knocked it sideways as they jumped on and off the bed, but upon touching it, figures that it is too heavy for two cats (one still a kitten) to move at all. He crouches down, and there’s a thin line across the floorboard from where the leg of the bedside table must have made when it was moved.

Baekhyun had tried to hide something, right here. He opens his eyes, and Yixing is looking at him intently. Baekhyun crouches down, knocking at the wooden floorboards. One of the planks come up hollow. Baekhyun looks around, and his eyes land on the basket of cat toys next to the table. He picks up a stick, with a plush mouse hanging off the other end. Using the stick, he traces the plank around the edges, until he finds a hole that’s tiny enough for the stick to fit through. He pokes the stick through, and uses it as leverage to lift the plank.

Hidden underneath is a Do Kunsun’s “Not Yet a Demigod”, and a book of Joochan’s family tree. Baekhyun flips to the very first page, and he immediately knows the connection Joochan was trying to draw, what Joochan had, in his very normal and idle life, treasured. It was his secret, the _thing_ that put him above his other colleagues. It was a secret that made him think that he was born for a reason, after all.

Baekhyun traces the words “Kim Junmyeon” reverently, and then flips to the index page of “Not Yet a Demigod”, just to check.

“ **Kim Junmyeon**. The Water God adopted this human name when he lost his immortality.”

Pale, long fingers touch the page, and Baekhyun turns back to see Yixing with his brows furrowed.

//

Baekhyun has Jongcheol meet him in the Starbucks a few blocks away from the station. He waits for the boy to order himself a coffee, and then cuts straight to the chase.

"The victims of the Butchers are all descendants of our gods," Baekhyun says, taking out Do Kunsun’s book and Kim Joochan’s family tree. "They were all descended from these mortal gods. Wu Shiyi—his mother was Oh Sanghee—they're famous for being descended from Oh Sehun, the Wind God. Kim Jonghye—her son Kim Euitae become famous precisely because he's rumoured to be a descendant of Kim Jongdae, the Thunder God. Do Kunsun wrote a whole book on being a descendant of the Land God, Do Kyungsoo."

"And their powers!" Jongcheol points out, "Kim Jonghye died of electrocution, Shiyi was strangled—air!"

"Kim Mansu was killed by freezing," Baekhyun continues. "He must have been the descendant of the Ice God, Kim Minseok. We need to make a list."

He then looks up to see a beaming Kim Jongcheol. "Thank you for coming, Jongcheol," he says, as sincerely as he can. "Really."

"I know if anyone is going to solve this mystery, it will be you," Jongcheol chirps happily. "The Director was wrong to remove you from the team."

Baekhyun smiles wryly. Perhaps, but he wouldn't have met Yixing. 

Jongcheol turns out to have quite an interest in the Gods as well, and quickly drafts out the list, saying proudly, "Yuxia-noona and I will start looking through the databases, trying to find their living descendants as quick as possible."

Ice—Kim Mansu (M)—(Kim Minseok)—right leg—freezer unit  
Wind—Wu Shiyi (M)—(Oh Sehun)—body and torso—open field  
Water—Kim Joochan (M)—(Kim Junmyeon)—head and spine—bathtub  
Light—? (?)—(?)—?—?  
Thunder—Kim Junhye (F)—(Kim Jongdae)—tongue—lightning conductor, school  
Fire—? (?)—(Park Chanyeol)—?—?  
Land—Do Kunsun (F)—(Do Kyungsoo)—right arm—office  
Justice—? (?)—(Kim Jongin)—?—?  
Life—? (?)—(?)—?—?

"I can understand some of the question marks, but we don't know the names of two of the God's mortal names?" Baekhyun frowns. Jongcheol nods. "I’ve read that the life god's immortal name was Lay, but that was all. As for the light god, no one has been able to find his immortal name—he was vastly worshiped, and both gods are mentioned in many texts, but it's always destroyed, or scribbled over, vandalized when it comes to anything that would shed light on his mortal form. It's almost like someone didn't want us to find their mortal identities."

Jongcheol’s phone buzzes, indicating his lunch break is over, so they part, and Baekhyun uses the lull in between cases to go to the central library and dig out all the old news articles in their online database. If this is a cult movement, specifically aimed at Gods, it might very well be a repetitive series of events.

One-hundred thirty-eight years ago, to be exact, as Baekhyun finds out. A set of twelve peculiar murders that were never solved. Likely another group of Butchers, having the same principle, having the same purpose. There might be more, but the library database only gives Baekhyun that much information.

Baekhyun had only wanted to double check, either way, he wasn’t expecting to get anything new from his excursion into the library.

The dead always talk more than the living.

//

There’s someone shaking him awake. Baekhyun’s reflexes are screaming at him to grab the grab the gun underneath his pillow, but Baekhyun is strangely lethargic, and it is with effort that he opens his eyes.

"Wake up." Baekhyun stares up at Yixing blearily. The other man looks even more pale. "There was a huge fire in a manor, in the countryside," Yixing murmurs. "When the fire was out, they found a body with a missing leg."

Baekhyun blinks up at him, and suddenly Yixing's fingers are in his hair, ruffling it once. "Do you not sleep?" He asks Yixing, and Yixing just laughs. He doesn’t even stop to ask how Yixing had gotten in—he had already accepted it as a given that the other man would appear wherever he wanted to appear.

Yixing is already dressed, and he sits on the side of the bed, swinging his legs as Baekhyun changes into proper clothes, limbs still sluggish. Yixing's gaze rakes over Baekhyun from head to toe.

No one can blame Baekhyun for putting on a little show, can they?

When Baekhyun bends over to put his trousers on, Yixing stands up abruptly. "You know the address, right?" He says cheerily, "I'll wait for you there."

Baekhyun smirks and nods.

The taxi deposits him three blocks away, as Baekhyun has instructed. Police tape has already been wrapped around the building, and to Baekhyun's chagrin, there's still two police cars parked outside.

Where is Yixing?

Cursing, he creeps closer to the building. It still smells unpleasantly of smoke and dowsed fire. 

The largely intact front door of the manor suddenly opens.

"Fuck!" Baekhyun cusses lowly, ducking into an alley. Kim Jongcheol passes by, his officer's uniform pristine and neat. There's an extra band on his shoulder; they've promoted him.

"Sir, are you sure?" The guy next to him says, a frown on his solemn face, "Our men will get attacked again, won't they?"

"That's why we won't leave any men here," Kim Jongcheol says tersely, glancing around casually. Baekhyun presses himself further against the wall.

"But the crime scene!"

"We have what we need," Kim Jongcheol shakes his head. "Besides, the crime scene wasn't touched at all the other times."

"Yes, sir," the cadet says, but his teeth are gritting.

Baekhyun waits until their car is long gone before he climbs under the tape. Yixing is already inside the crime scene, sitting cross-legged in the middle of all the crumbling ashes of what is left of Park Changuk's study.

"They burnt him there," Yixing murmurs, and in a quick flick of his wrist, the fireplace in the back of the room suddenly catches on fire, shielding the white line from view. There are ashes in the fireplace that quickly disappear as well. "Let's begin."

Baekhyun has barely taken in the crime scene when his mind is just overtaken by Yixing's voice. 

Baekhyun had come in with friends—that's why the door was opened wide, to fit everyone through the doorway, leaving a mark on the curtained floor. This is an elegant, old-styled room, but just for show. An unused fireplace, barely charred. Books surround Baekhyun.

Park Changuk is fast asleep over his books, saliva pulling on the table. Baekhyun carefully lifts the man off the table and near the fireplace, stuffing him inside gingerly. Park Changuk doesn't wake. If he does, he is not awake enough to struggle. Once inside the fireplace, Baekhyun stretches out his left leg—someone else brings the cutter down.

This time, Park Changuk struggles violently, and blood splays all over Baekhyun and his friends, and all along the walls of the fireplace. But the more he struggles, the more energy runs away from him, and he is at the mercy of Baekhyun and his friends. Someone else brings the wood—very specifically bought, because Park Changuk never actually uses the fireplace. Why would he use the fireplace so close to his darling books? Baekhyun takes a step back, weighs Park Changuk down with the logs. To be safe, he grabs the poker ornamented above the fireplace, pressing Park Changuk down as his friends pour the gasoline over the fireplace, and then lights the fire.

His friends leave first, but Baekhyun presses Park Changuk down, and down, and down, and down until the screaming stops, and until the fire has spread around Baekhyun like a sacrificial circle. Enraptured, Baekhyun reaches a hand out, touches the flames. They caress his hands, as if thanking him for the kill.

Baekhyun's hand burns, and Yixing breaks his vision.

"Are you an idiot?" Yixing spits angrily, yanking Baekhyun closer to himself.

"You told me to immerse," Baekhyun hisses in pain. "The guy did this."

Yixing's hand covers Baekhyun's burnt hand, cool and gentle. A warm glow emits from their joined hands.

Baekhyun flinches, but Yixing holds his hands tightly, and once his grip loosens, Baekhyun snatches his hand back, as if burnt.

He holds his hand up, and it's like nothing has happened to it.

"What did you do?" His voice is steely; alien to even himself. "More of your parlour tricks?"

Yixing smiles widely, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "Yep." The 'p' pops off his bottom lip, aggravatingly.

"You're an asshole," Baekhyun breathes out. 

He crouches down, saying, "They knew what this room looked like before they came—they know someone who's been in there, or they themselves have been in here—they knew there wasn't actually going to be firewood here, so they bought it themselves."

"Park Changuk has a butler," Yixing says helpfully. "Coincidentally, he broke his leg and is in hospital. He has a ledger of all the visitors to the manor."

"And the police will have it," Baekhyun groans.

"Don't you know someone in the police?" Yixing cocks his head to one side, feigning innocence.

"Yuxia?" Baekhyun frowns. "She won't have access to these information."

Yixing frowns. "Yuxia?" He repeats, "No, I was talking about the officer just now. Kim Jongcheol."

"He's already done so much," Baekhyun mutters. "He's still a young kid. Telling me about the case details are one thing—stealing key evidence is another. I can't jeopardize his career like that. Moreover, there's the case of whoever was insane enough to stick his hand into the fire."

"How did you know that?" Yixing asks, "How did you know he stuck his hand into the fire?"

Baekhyun looks back at his own hand, and at the still burning fireplace. "He stayed, until the fire surrounded him," Baekhyun says, gesturing to the relative clean spot surrounded by ashes. "In some part of his mind, he thought he wasn't going to get burnt. He enjoyed the knowledge of it."

Yixing takes Baekhyun's hands, laces their fingers together. "You're doing much better than I expected." He smiles. "I knew it was right to come to you, Baekhyun.”

//

When Jongcheol's text message with an address and an autopsy report comes again, Baekhyun and Yixing are prepared. Just like last time, Jongcheol did not leave any men at the crime scene, allowing Yixing and Baekhyun to just walk in.

The girl, Kim Eunhye had had her right arm hacked off and left in this alleyway for dead. There were semen samples across the walls and on her skin, and in her vagina, and Yuxia had accurately linked her as a descendent of the Justice God. The Director had profiled it as a Butcher murder, but Baekhyun cannot see anything related to the Justice God Kai in the alleyway, or the fact that the girl had bled to death as her right arm had been hacked off.

There's a white silhouette slumped in the corner of the alleyway, right next to the fire escape of a nightclub. The autopsy had said there had been semen inside of her anus as well, suspecting rape.

Baekhyun closes his eyes, and then there is a warm body right next to his, sensuous and alluring, and he grabs Yixing closer by the hip. He wants the girl, and she’s enticing him, dragging him deeper into the alleyway. He’s impatient.

"Just like that," Yixing whispers airily, and Baekhyun slams him into the wall, lifting him up. Yixing seems startled by Baekhyun's strength, but he quickly wraps his long legs around Baekhyun's hips, leaning down to kiss Baekhyun messily.

Baekhyun hastily pulls down Yixing's trousers, both hands going to cup Yixing's ass. Yixing's hands are also busy at work, undoing Baekhyun's fly and pushing his pants and boxers down.

Baekhyun's cock is already hard and erect, precum already beading from the tip. He is caught between reality and fantasy, the desire of the killer for the woman is now his desire for Yixing, and Baekhyun is driven insane.

They don't bother with prep, Baekhyun gives Yixing's hard cock a few jerks and then he presses his own cock inside the dry and tight hole. Blood seeps out immediately, and Yixing's nails dig into Baekhyun's shoulders, but Baekhyun is unrelenting at the impossibly tight heat that surrounds his cock. He is in seventh heaven.

"Just like that," Yixing moans out, and Baekhyun slams in so hard that the back of Yixing's head knocks into the wall, but he doesn't seem to mind, just clenches tighter around Baekhyun's cock. His pale thighs are trembling, red flowing down in tendrils. "He didn't rape her," Baekhyun growls out. "She was a fucking whore."

"He didn't pay for her, though," Yixing rasps in amusement, his fingers tugging Baekhyun's hair painfully. The last word turns into a breathless scream when the head of Baekhyun's cock catches against something.

Grinning, Baekhyun sets Yixing down on the ground and Yixing takes off his shirt. Baekhyun's eyes drift onto the stitches that throw light around as Yixing shifts his muscles. They run a circle around his arms, his waist. "Turn around, bitch."

Yixing just laughs and turns around, hand against the wall as Baekhyun places his hands on Yixing's hips and fucks in, just like how the culprit had taken the woman. Hard, rough, unforgiving. Baekhyun aims straight for Yixing's prostate, abusing it ruthlessly. In front of him, there is a line of neat stitches that run down Yixing's back, ending slightly above his hip. Who is Yixing, really?

There is only the lewd sound of flesh slapping against flesh, and, unsatisfied, Baekhyun drags Yixing up by the hair, stretching his neck taut, and then Yixing's mouth falls open and those beautiful moans fall out as Yixing's walls squeeze deliciously around Baekhyun's cock. 

He closes his eyes, and he's fucking a woman right now—she doesn't anger him, she's not fighting back. She's obeying his movements just as Yixing is right now, pliant and soft. Baekhyun's eyes snap open.

It's Yixing underneath him right now, hair matted, moaning for Baekhyun. Baekhyun's hands leave Yixing's hips and trails up, his fingers briefly touching white thread. Yixing's own hands are planted on the wall, and Baekhyun laces their fingers together.

His hips stutter briefly at the sudden change of pace, but then he reinvigorates, speeding up. In contrast to the tenderness in taking Yixing's hand in his, he fucks in harder, wanting to hear the sounds Yixing makes, and he leans forward to leave red marks over the back of Yixing's neck.

Then, suddenly, Yixing's entrance gets impossibly tight, and Baekhyun's scream is echoed by Yixing's own as they ride to the top together, white semen splashing across the wall and leaking out of Yixing's entrance.

They stand there for a few minutes, breathing heavily, trying to calm their breathing. Baekhyun pulls away, and his come gushes out, spilling onto the floor, tinged pink.

"Look at the mess you've made," Yixing laughs hoarsely, pulling a packet of tissue from his trousers and handing one to Baekhyun. Baekhyun just stuffs his cock back into his boxers and pulls up his pants, fixing it and buttoning up his shirt. In front of him, Yixing gingerly wipes at his entrance and up and down his thighs before putting his clothes back on.

Baekhyun eyes Yixing warily, but Yixing doesn’t seem to be in pain or in discomfort despite all the blood Baekhyun had just fucked out of him. He opens his mouth, wanting to apologize, but the words escape him, and he looks away.

They both start cleaning up the semen on the wall and floor, and then Yixing asks, "What did you get?"

"It wasn't a Butcher," Baekhyun sighs. "This was a lone wolf with a sick tendency of killing girls he fucks. The cut is so unclean. Besides, they already have a right arm. This was not an ironic kill. She might be a descendant of the Kim Jongin, but she was just at the wrong place at the wrong moment."

"That's right." Yixing's dimples deepens, as if Baekhyun is a kid who just came back with an A+ on his assignment.

"You knew, you fucker," Baekhyun laughs, wiping away the last of the semen on the wall. "You just wanted to get fucked."

"You enjoyed it," Yixing physically preens. He leans forward, and then soft lips slot against Baekhyun's own, and he loses himself in it. 

"Next time just ask," Baekhyun breathes after Yixing pulls away. "There are better places to fuck than a crime scene."

"Did you learn anything from this crime scene, however?" Yixing asks. 

Baekhyun is about to shake his head, then thinks more about it. The autopsy report floats in front of his mind. "She had a flaw," he says carefully. "She was promiscuous. She was lustful. All of the other Butcher victims were all upstanding members of society.

"But how does that help?" Baekhyun narrows his eyes, "This still doesn't narrow down the pool."

Yixing just smiles and shakes his head.

Checking that they had left nothing, Baekhyun pulls his phone out. There's a text from Yuxia to call her as soon as possible.

"What's wrong?" He asks as she picks up on the first ring.

"There's two Kim Jongin descendents left." She says, "What did you find?"

Baekhyun gives a look to Yixing, who only blinks innocently at him, both dimples in full view. "Kim Eunhye wasn’t a Butcher kill. Is there one who's... not an upstanding citizen of society? You can remove that one."

Long silence, and then a deep sigh.

"Yes," she says. "There's a man who's in prison right now. The remaining man is the Butcher's next target?"

"Most likely," Baekhyun says, getting into the car.

"Baekhyun," Yuxia says tersely, "Kim Jongin's descendant—Kim Jongin's last remaining descendant is Kim Jongcheol."

Baekhyun's breath catches, and Yixing gives him an odd look. "Kim Jongcheol?" Baekhyun repeats and Yuxia gives him an affirmation.

"What's going to happen?" Baekhyun swallows. "Take it to the Director," Yuxia says stiffly. "Get protective custody for Jongcheol in the precinct. None of us here are good enough to protect him." Baekhyun glances at Yixing briefly, but quickly turns his back against the other man.

"You decide, Yuxia," Baekhyun grimaces. "Right now, you've spent more time with Jongcheol than I have. Does he know?"

"Yes," Yuxia sighs. "He is a brave, brave boy. He will become a great detective."

Sudden fear rides up Baekhyun's spine, and he shivers when Yixing puts a hand on his shoulder, a concerned gaze on his face.

"Protect him well, Yuxia," he says. "No matter what it takes."

But the wheel of fate goes on, and when Yixing enters Baekhyun's room the next day, Baekhyun has curled up at the head of the bed, fingers digging so hard into the leg of his sleeping pants that the knuckles are white. The pillows have all been kicked onto the ground, and the papers and clock on the bedside table have been knocked down too. 

Yixing sits down silently next to Baekhyun, wrapping his arms around Baekhyun, resting his chin on top of Baekhyun's head, enveloping Baekhyun with warmth.

But even with Yixing's healing powers, Baekhyun knows there will always be a hole inside his heart that Yixing cannot heal.

//

Yuxia smuggles them in after hours. Baekhyun is just about to do introductions when he realizes Yixing was already gone, and to Yuxia, Baekhyun had come alone. Yuxia has thicker make-up than usual, but no matter how hard she tries to hide, her eyes are bloodshot.

"Ten years of working for the police, the first time it's felt like a failure," Yuxia chuckles blandly as they walk towards the crime scene.

It's one of the maximum security holding cells, the key only held by the Director. The door is slightly ajar from earlier investigations, but Baekhyun tells Yuxia he wants to go in alone.

Yuxia hesitates, then nods, telling him to go find her in her office after his investigation so that she could let him out.

He walks in and switches on the lights.

Yixing is sitting on the cot that Jongcheol had slept in yesterday. Half of the blankets have spilt onto the cement floor, and Yixing's lips are parted slightly in shock. Baekhyun turns his gaze onto what Yixing is looking at.

"Jongcheol..." Baekhyun sinks onto his knees, too stunned to start the investigation.

"He was crucified..." Yixing murmurs.

The young officer looks even younger here, his right arm stretched out into a 90 degrees from his body, nailed onto the wall. There's a nail in his left chest. His feet are crossed and nailed together, and his left arm is gone.

His eyes are glassy, staring at the opposite wall. The ceramic figurine of the Justice God stares back.

"Fuck!" Baekhyun screams, and Yixing jumps lightly.

By putting Jongcheol in the precinct, they've _created_ this very irony. Jongcheol's glassy eyes meet with Justice God Kai's. And hadn't crucifixion been Kai's favourite punishment when he had become the mortal detective Kim Jongin?

But Jongcheol was innocent.

Baekhyun closes his eyes, but then Jongcheol's frightened face fills his gaze, and he has to snap out of it. He closes his eyes again, and now he's bringing the hammer down on Jongcheol's hand, Jongcheol is screaming, and Baekhyun has to open his eyes again, seeking for a lifeline.

Yixing catches him, drags Baekhyun into his lap, runs soothing fingers through his hairs. "I can't do it," Baekhyun chokes out, "Xing, I can't do it."

"It's alright," Yixing soothes. "It's completely fine. This one is easy."

Baekhyun kisses Yixing, slow and languid, needing that physical comfort, and Yixing lets him. The kiss swallows them, drowns them.

They part, and there's pity in Yixing's eyes.

“Think about it, Baekhyun. The Director is the only one who could have ever gained access to that room.” Yixing says, slender fingers resting on Baekhyun’s cheek.

“So could you,” Baekhyun whispers.

If anything, Yixing’s digits now feel even colder than before. “So could I,” he agrees, and his other hand opens to reveal a set of keys. "So could you."

Baekhyun stares at the keyring for a long moment, and then he looks up to meet Yixing's eyes again. Those eyes, in which on first sight, Baekhyun had thought they were his own. Clear, bright, iridescent.

"Let's go," Baekhyun says, getting up from Yixing's lap. The elevator needs one of the employee cards, so Baekhyun takes Yixing up the stairs. The narrow stairwell seems even more dark and sinister now.

When they get to the floor above, there's a light in the far left, where Yuxia's office is. Baekhyun pulls Yixing forward until they reach the set of oak doors. Yixing puts the key inside the door, and with a click, pushes it open.

Baekhyun is half-expecting the Director to be behind the desk, but the room is empty.

Too empty.

Gone is the computer, or the papers inside the cabinets. The safe swings wide open. Baekhyun buries his face in Yixing's shoulder, crippled for the second time this night.

They go to Yuxia's office, silent and morose. Yixing doesn't go in with him—instead, Baekhyun is left alone to face Yuxia's disbelief, and then grudging, painful acceptance. 

"I can't leave," Yuxia stands up, looking out the window, as if fearful of the monsters in the dark of the night. "I'm the only link between you and the office. If there's anymore—I'm the only one left who can tell you that."

"Xia, you're a doctor, not an officer," Baekhyun argues. "Jongcheol—Jongcheol signed up for this role. You don't have to do this."

"Baekhyun, no one signed up for this role," Yuxia argues firmly. "Even if you're an officer, a detective—we don't sign up to _die_. We sign up to serve the public, to protect the public, not _die_."

"Yu-"

"Enough, Baekhyun," Yuxia suddenly barks authoritatively. "I'll walk you out."

Yuxia refuses to talk to Baekhyun the whole way to the backdoor, and he pretty much stumbles out.

"Be safe, Xia," he calls to her, but she just turns around and leaves.

Yixing is waiting by the car, and when Baekhyun approaches, Yixing reaches a hand out to ruffle his hair, and in his other hand, reveals a scrap piece of paper.

"What's that?" Baekhyun asks, putting his morose thoughts in the back of his head as he steels himself to look at what Yixing has found. "The scrap paper basket," Yixing says. "He probably thought we wouldn't have checked a bin that is a floor below."

The paper is clearly torn out from a larger notebook, and on it there are scribbles of some websites. "They can't be proper websites," Yixing points out. Baekhyun frowns. "Deep web?" he suggests. Yixing shrugs, "I'm not that good at these new-fangled IT stuff."

Yixing tells Baekhyun to drop him off in front of a grocery store, and Baekhyun drives home alone. His dream is plagued by blood dripping onto the ground, of hammer hitting against flesh and metal.

But even so, when they came in two hours after midnight, Baekhyun was still not prepared. He was awake the very moment they burst in the window, but they were more prepared than he was. There were five of them. Perhaps he had entered their minds before, in the past, but now they are an unknown entity, a mass of darkness that screams danger with every step they take.

He struggles, tries to reach for a weapon, but they are faster, and stronger. They know what Baekhyun is capable of. Dimly, Baekhyun is afraid for Yixing—did they get him too?

The chloroform knocks him out in seconds.

When he comes to, he's tied to a chair. Blearily he looks around, and he is surrounded by colourful boxes. There's the smell of gunpowder in the dark room.

He seems to be in a warehouse, by the looks of the pipes running along the walls and dipping down from the ceiling. Some sort of storage container, again.

Fingers grasp his chin and he blinks at his assailant. Their faces are on full display. Three men and two women.

"Our God will be more than happy with this sacrifice," the man who holds Baekhyun breathes out, in near reverence. "He has such beautiful eyes."

So, Baekhyun is a sacrifice. He isn't here because of his interest in the case, but because he's a sacrifice.

For a God—that would explain their systematic targeting on descendants of Gods. Baekhyun didn't expect the reason to be out of superstition, but it makes sense. He had guessed as much, he had just needed confirmation.

Suddenly, he thinks of Jongcheol—was he scared, when they came for him? He had been so young.

"Let's begin," someone says in the background, and one of the women come forward. Her dyed blonde hair is tied back in a bun, looking like a typical office lady. Her white blouse and floral skirt gives her a facade of purity and naivety. Baekhyun eyes the metal scoop in her hands, warily.

"His eyes are so pretty," the woman is vibrating in the spot. "Is our God's eyes as pretty, as well?"

"Yes, Yumin," the man who holds Baekhyun says kindly. "You will see our God when everything is done. Perhaps, for your hard work, he will grow to appreciate you and accept your willingness to serve."

"Yes," Yumin whispers, her eyes glazed over, and her other hand comes to rest on her flat stomach. "It is my honour to give everything to my God."

The woman presses the scoop right next to Baekhyun's eye, pressing down with such a huge strength that Baekhyun cries out, not having anticipated such force coming from such a dainty creature.

"I'm sorry," the man says with genuine sympathy in his voice. "We have to do this the old-fashioned way, but our God Lay will take care of you and raise you from the dead. You will live on forever inside of him."

"What a kind soul," Baekhyun rasps, and an angry hiss rises amongst the five at his mocking tone.

"Junsik-oppa warned us about reactions such as these," Yumin says firmly. "I shall proceed, Changi-oppa."

"Proceed, Yumin," the man says gravely, but much more cold than before.

"I will," the girl repeats, but this time, it's more to herself. "I-"

The lights go out.

The very next second the TNT around him bursts into flames, and Baekhyun's chair is flung sideways by the blast. Flames lick up the ceilings and the walls, surrounding Baekhyun, coincidentally cutting him off from his assailants. He can see the fire dancing in their dilated pupils, and he wriggles against his bonds.

They loosen quickly, but he has no intention of running straight into the Butchers.

"Get him out!" Changi roars at the boy closest to the fire, "Seunghun, go!"

There is hesitation in the boy's eyes, and Baekhyun throws himself back into the fire, letting it lick up his arms and back.

"He- he's in the fire!"

"Seunghun!"

Fear, and Seunghun loses his last window as flames roar up between Baekhyun and him.

Cold hands surround him, around his waist, and Yixing's hands burn as well as Yixing drags Baekhyun deeper and deeper into the fire, until they reach a hidden door that leads to a staircase.

Both of their bodies are smoking, but Baekhyun can only stare weakly as Yixing starts to glow, their wounds knitting together and healing at the same time. The door must be scalding to touch, but Yixing just kicks it open. They walk down the crumbling stairs until they're at the back of the building.

Crouching in the smoke-filled alleyway, Baekhyun feels purified from head to toe as Yixing holds him. Smoke fills his vision, but it does not plague him.

The smoke is already pouring out of the building. Baekhyun and Yixing hide around the corner as the three Butchers stumble out of the building.

"Is he dead, Changi-oppa?" The girl asks, stammering, "Did we fail?"

"Yumin, go drive the car over," the man says, stopping to catch his breath. Once the girl is gone, however, he rounds on the boy.

"Fuck! We needed to offer his eyes up to the God! How can we welcome our God if we don't give him all the necessary sacrifices?"

"I- Changi hyung- I didn't-"

"Why were you afraid, Seunghun? Why were you afraid of death? Do you not know that our God will protect you from burning as you carry out his will? Do you not attend Junsik-hyung’s sermons?"

"I- No, Changi hyung, I didn't mean- I have sinned- I was weak-"

"Yes you were, but our God Lay is a merciful God. Go back to base and we will take care of this."

Baekhyun's bitter laugh vibrates in his throat. He can feel Yixing flinching, and Baekhyun turns around to face him just as the Butchers drive away.

And in that one, silent moment, as their eyes meet, a cold finger touches the base of Baekhyun's spine, and Byun Baekhyun realizes three things.

A) He, Byun Baekhyun, is the descendant of the Light God.  
B) Zhang Yixing knew that along.  
C) Zhang Yixing is part of the Butchers.

A light touch on his shoulder, and Baekhyun jumps violently. "Are you alright?" Yixing asks. "Did they do anything to you?"

"Don't touch me!" Baekhyun shouts, "You fucking liar!"

"I never said I was anything, Baekhyun," Yixing says, frustration laced in his words. "That's an unfair assessment."

Yixing's eyes flicker uncertainly, and Baekhyun's eyes widen. He had been drawn to Yixing at first, because of those eyes. Clear, bright, having that certain element to it, just like his own.

Changi had mentioned offering up Baekhyun's eyes to the God—what did the Life God want with them?

And if Baekhyun was attacked just for those eyes, what did that make Yixing?

Where did the eyes go?

"You're not a follower of the Butchers," Baekhyun breathes out. Bile rises in his throat and he pushes the man in front of him away. His hand comes up to cover his mouth, but it cannot stop the retching as Baekhyun sinks to his knees, acrid vomit spilling out onto the floor.

“You're their God.”

//

"Yes," Yixing answers his unasked question, "I am- I was Lay, the Life God. The Butchers are my followers."

"You killed all of them," Baekhyun starts to shake. "You killed- you killed them all."

Yixing cocks his head to one side, not teasingly, but softly, momentarily reminding Baekhyun of a small, wounded animal. But the image only flashes in front of his eyes for a split second.

“Perhaps the greatest evil lies in watching this all happen, and not doing a single thing about it," Yixing muses. "I am not a god anymore."

Baekhyun has no words for him.

Yixing seems to want to take a step forward, but thinks better of it and just shakes his head. "Be careful, Baekhyun," he says. "Leave the country, now that they think you're dead. Start a new life."

He steps away, and Baekhyun finally speaks. "You're a murderer. A hypocrite."

Yixing tilts his head to a side sadly. "If you think so, Baekhyun."

Baekhyun sighs and squeezes his eyes shut. It's hard, knowing that Yixing that had accompanied him for so long, that he had helped him so much, that he had fucked, that he had kissed—to know that Yixing had known everything the whole time, and Baekhyun had been played like a puppet.

But that also explains a lot. His ability to just appear in places, and his healing magic. He is a God, after all. Baekhyun had thought that they were all dead, but it seems that there is still one last immortal God left in this planet.

"Where are you going to go now, now that I've found out who you are?" Baekhyun asks. "What about you?" Yixing returns. "What else can I do?" Baekhyun shrugs, "Live a life running away? Let them get away from it, let them continue their _sacrifices_ to you?"

"It's not as simple as that, Baekhyun." Yixing argues, but then clearly thinks better of it than sighs.

“Then just tell me, Yixing!” Baekhyun yells, “Tell me how to stop them! Tell me how to catch them! Why did you even help me in the first place?”

“Baekh-”

“I’m a detective, Zhang Yixing!” Baekhyun throws at him, and Yixing staggers back, as if physically pained by this reminder.

Baekhyun watches as Yixing’s fists clench, but Baekhyun does not relent. Baekhyun had been lied to before, had been betrayed before, but the fact that it comes from Zhang Yixing makes Baekhyun feel like an _idiot_.

“What do you want from me, God?” Baekhyun yells as a last hurrah, and then he turns and leaves, turning his back on Yixing, turning his back on the god, ignoring the tears that well up in his eyes.

The fire continues to rage behind him, and suddenly Baekhyun chokes on the smoke in the air, and he crouches down in the middle of the street, disoriented, letting the tears fall.

//

Baekhyun wakes up with swollen eyes. He’s forgotten how he had gotten home. His head is aching, hurting like he’s hungover.

The sky is still dark.

Baekhyun falls back asleep.

//

He wakes, and his phone is bright with notifications. Yuxia had texted him a few times every hour or so. He frowns when he notices an unknown number, with an address in the text. He makes a quick search, and it points him to an apartment in a decently well-off complex. He scrolls through Yuxia's texts and she isn't saying any similar information. Baekhyun suddenly recalls that he hasn't checked on his informants for a long time, one of them must have come up with something.

Giving a proper look in Yuxia's texts, there's nothing much to be aware of. One text telling him about the fire, another asking how he was coping. One telling him that the department is getting someone from the capital to come in next week. One last one telling him to be careful.

He's still in the clothes he was in, ash-covered and dirty. Sighing heavily, he drags himself to the closet to change.

Fuck Zhang Yixing. Byun Baekhyun doesn't need him. Byun Baekhyun can handle this one alone.

Still, there is momentary disappointment when he opens the door to the flat, and he's alone with the dead body.

He checks every room in the apartment, but no, he's alone with the dead body.

Said dead body is just lying there on the floor, topless. There's a black mark on his chest, right above his heart, and a discarded taser lies next to the man. They’ve re-used one of their methods to kill. The man's eyes have been dug out, as the girl had tried to do to Baekhyun in the industrial building. If Baekhyun could see his eyes, though, they must be like Baekhyun's own, bright, clear, and iridescent.

The police hasn't come here yet, which is a big bonus, and Baekhyun quickly finds the man's wallet, as well as his string of fake passports. He does manage to find the man's proper identification, though. Byun Byeongkyun, 41 years old, and criminal. A rich criminal, judging by the furnishings of the apartment.

He goes to the man's computer, and easily cracks it. A blue screen pops up, and Baekhyun sucks in a huge breath as he stares at the webclient. He's been briefed enough times when he was back in police academy on it.

It's the Dark web.

Baekhyun has that scrap of paper from the Director's Office practically memorized in his head, and he keys in the URL. Up pops a website of a black market, and Baekhyun quickly finds one of the fake names Byun Byeongkyun operates under.

Byun Byeongkyun is one of Baekhyun's relatives, and this man trades in blood from third world countries.

"They didn't want to kill Byun Byeongkyun," Baekhyun says aloud. "But time was running out, and they couldn't find another descendant. They even had to re-use their method of tasing people, because they didn’t have time to prepare anything else. They knew Byun Byeongkyun was a descendant that fit their description a long time ago, but they wanted to choose another descendant. Why?"

He pulls up an encrypted file, and cracks open a ledger. 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 3, 1, 2, 5, 1. A column of dates, a column of letters. A, B, AB, B, B, B, A, O, O, O, B, O.

A human body needs blood, after all, and blood expires. You can't just leave blood sitting there for days.

Baekhyun filters the list to recent deliveries, and immediately repeat addresses pop up. They hadn't expected anyone to actually find Byun Byeongkyun's body this quickly—after all, he was just a trafficker. 

Baekhyun guesses that they hadn't even wanted to kill Byun Byeongkyun, given his usefulness, as well as his line of work. But when they failed in taking Baekhyun' eyes, they were forced to do something else.

Address in hand, Baekhyun walks out of the flat, helpfully locking it behind him. He doesn't need the police tipping the Butchers off.

And if he does a last walk through the flat, looking for a man with a dimpled smile, no one can blame him, right?

He just goes back home to pack a few necessities, and then he takes a cab to the address in Byun Byeongkyun's ledger. It's a closed-down secondary school, taken over by nature. There's a relatively distinct, but still off-beat path that leads to the building, and Baekhyun takes it.

Two minutes in, Baekhyun ducks behind two men walking down the path and knocks them out.

It takes a while to drag them into the bushes, but in their bags, he finds matching black cloaks. He quickly puts it in his own bag, and continues walking along the path like nothing has happened. It was right to come here immediately, after all.

As he gets nearer to the main block, Baekhyun spots a few young men and women putting on their own black cloaks, so he throws his on as well. Keeping his head low, Baekhyun follows these people through the corridors of the school and into what seems to be a sports hall.

The sports hall seems to be half-full, and there are people handing out sleeping bags. Baekhyun takes one and mutters a quick thank you, quickly blending out with the crowd.

The gun on his thigh is burning hot, and before Baekhyun pretends to settle in and sleep like everyone else, he places one hand on it.

//

Baekhyun doesn't sleep, of course. He's surrounded by the people who had murdered Jongcheol. Underneath the covers of the sleeping bag he checks his phone, and there's a text with an emoji from Yuxia. Yuxia never sends emojis.

Baekhyun quickly shoots up, quickly putting the black cloak, but there's nothing he can do right now. He only prays that it's something else that can wait.

The hall fills up in the day, over 100 people, maybe more, and Baekhyun's sleeping bag is taken away. Baekhyun is momentarily crippled with fear at the sheer amount of people that's in the hall. He can't imagine that all of them have killed. 

Around midnight, the lights of the hall dim, and the curtains open slowly. Baekhyun does not join in with the cheering.

A middle-aged, balding man steps onto the stage with a microphone in his hands.

"Hello, my brothers!" the man begins. "My name is Chae Junsik, and I thank you for all you have done for our cause!"

Baekhyun's throat runs dry when he looks at this 'cause' Chae Junsik is talking about, because it is an image that he will dream about for the rest of his life.

It is a puppet put on a surgical table, put on the stage of the hall, high above the crowd. There’s a video camera, a projector, and then a screen that shows Baekhyun an aerial view of the body. Kim Mansu’s right leg, Park Changuk’s left leg. Wu Shiyi’s body. Kim Joochan’s head and spine. Poking out between the lips, Kim Junhye’s tongue. Byun Byeongkyun’s glassy, iridescent eyes lie in the sockets instead of Kim Joochan’s plainer ones. Do Kunsun’s right arm, Jongcheol’s left.

Right now, they all look the same, only identifiable by the white stitches that hold them together. Baekhyun looks more intently at the puppet’s face, and realizes he’s not staring into Joochan’s face. They must have done cosmetic surgery post-mortem, because the face that the puppet wears is Yixing’s.

He pushes forward, wanting to see a closer look.

"Dude, stop shoving."

Baekhyun turns his head to find Choi Myungdae looking at him crossly. He quickly lowers his head and mutters an apology.

He's close enough, at least.

And again, he's guessed correctly. Karma, really.

Zhang Yuxia's eyes are swollen with tears as she is pushed onstage, tied to a medical table, her normally immaculate hair messy and unkempt. She's in her working blouse and skirt, but her stockings are torn, and she is barefeet as she lies on the medical table. Even now she's struggling against her bonds..

Zhang Yuxia—(Zhang Yixing). "I didn't know God was Chinese," he mutters low beneath his breath.

"We are gathered here to give life to our God Lay," Chae Junsik's voice rings over the crowd, and everyone quiets. "We are here to witness his rebirth!"

A low roar: a cult, a crowd, a mob.

"And now we tread on the path of our forefathers," Chae Junsik roars. "And we call upon you, Life God Lay, to heal this world of its diseases, purge its evils! We give to you, your daughter's heart, and may you be reborn!"

A blade flicks out of his sleeve, and Baekhyun pulls his gun out.

Chae Junsik staggers backward as red blossoms on his dark robes, but his grip on his knife doesn't loosen. Yuxia is struggling even more now as her eyes widen with recognition, but Baekhyun is immediately knocked down by the surrounding followers. His vision blacks out momentarily as a burly man punches him in the face.

"It's the Light God's descendant!" Someone screams, "he's still alive!"

"Doesn't matter!"

To Baekhyun's horror, Chae Junsik picks himself up, as if he hadn't just gotten shot through the chest, "I am protected by the Life God! None of your parlour tricks will harm me!"

Baekhyun's scream is echoed by Yuxia's own as Chae Junsik's knife cuts right through her shirt and into her skin, right between her breasts. Chae Junsik's fist follows, and Yuxia is rendered voiceless, her face frozen in its ugly, contorted state as Chae Junsik rips her beating heart out of her chest.

Chae Junsik puts the heart inside the puppet’s chest, and someone sews the skin together with a thread and needle. Needles get pushed into the puppet's arms, and now Baekhyun can see that they're connected to blood bags—the ones bought from Byun Byeongkyun.

"None of this is scientific," Baekhyun says aloud, and of all things, why does this flash across his mind? He begins to laugh at his own idiocy, and the burly man punches him again.

"Dispose of him as we wait for our god," Chae Junsik orders. "We don't need him."

Baekhyun's laughter intensifies, and this time blood splays out of his nose as he gets punched again. Blood clogs into his right eye as a vessel bursts.

"Zhang Yixing!" Baekhyun screams, saliva splashing onto the follower in front of him, "I know you're there, you fucker! I'm going to fucking die!"

Two teeth get knocked out this time, dropping next to Baekhyun's shoe, "You're gonna see me die, is that it, huh? I'm gonna join all your dead friends, and all my dead friends, and you can go fuck yourself the next time you want a cock up your ass!"

Then someone—Choi Myungdae picks up Baekhyun's gun that he had dropped, and Baekhyun chokes on his own laughter.

"Kill him," Chae Junsik snarls, and Baekhyun is now made aware that every single follower is looking at him.

"Junsik," someone says in a small voice, "the god hasn't come yet."

"He will soon," Chae Junsik snarls back. "After we dispose of the detective."

Myungdae's arms are quivering. "You haven't actually killed before, have you?" Baekhyun grins widely. "You just locked the poor guy in the freezer and never looked back. It wasn't even you doing the delivering those two weeks—you wouldn't dare to open the door."

Then Choi Myungdae grins back, and Baekhyun knows he guessed wrong.

"I crouched outside everyday, hear him beg," Myungdae answers. "It was my honour to deliver the sacrifice to my god."

Baekhyun laughs and closes his eyes.

A click, and nothing happens.

"You haven't pulled the safety, you fucking idiot." Someone snarls, and Baekhyun opens his eyes and sees Chae Junsik snatch the gun out of Myungdae's hands, pulling the safety back. Chae Junsik points the gun back at Baekhyun's forehead.

"Goodbye, Detective," he says. "It is a shame you could not live a longer life as a part of our God's new body."

Baekhyun just gives the man a bright, big, bloody smile.

Chae Junsik's finger slides onto the trigger, and he collapses onto the floor, twitching. White foam spills out from his mouth, and the gun slides out from his grip. The other followers step back anxiously, terrified by this turn of events.

Then, like a plague, they all fall down onto the floor, limbs jerking erratically, eyes rolling to the back of their heads. Pained grunts and pathetic moans fill the room, and Baekhun kneels on the floor, tired. A pool of blood surrounds him.

He watches silently as Chae Junsik's skin shrivels and purples, blood seeping out of his nose, until he stills, the life gone out of his eyes.

And in the midst of the dying crowd, Yixing walks towards Baekhyun with a smile on his face. Baekhyun looks up at him dumbly, and Yixing kneels down, framing Baekhyun's face with his hands. "What am I going to do about you?" Yixing murmurs. "You affect me too much, don't you?"

Baekhyun vision clears as his broken tissue knit back together, the bruises fading into nothing just as the last Butcher stops twitching and lie there, dead.

Yixing wipes away the blood on Baekhyun's face, and upon failing to do so with his fingers, does so with light kisses to Baekhyun's skin, licking the blood away.

"What kind of god are you?" Baekhyun laughs drily. "Let me up."

Yixing pulls Baekhyun up onto his feet.

"I am... I was different from the other gods," Yixing states abruptly. "They... their souls, their godly side relied on you mortals. As long as someone believed in them, they would live as immortals forever.

"But you stopped. You stopped believing, and as their godly souls withered away, so did their bodies. They passed, as mortals. But I am the god of healing—it would be ironic, if I could not heal myself. But I am already much weaker than I was—I could sustain my soul, but not my body. So this started—my few followers made me new ones. New vessels that I could pass onto. I never needed any sacrifice, or some... patchwork doll, but that was what my followers wanted. I even had to grow my own flesh, bones and organs, but as long as they believed in me, as long as they believed that what they did appeased me, I would gain power.

"I have sustained this vessel for over a century, now. It is old. I can no longer stop it from aging. That's why they made me a new one."

"But you killed all your followers," Baekhyun rasps. "All of them."

"Yes," Yixing smiles. "For you."

"Now you're not going to have any of your powers."

"Yes, and no," Yixing shrugs. "Yes, I can no longer project my power as I did. No, this body will still be able to survive, only it will no longer stay youthful. I am now no more different than all the others. I am now mortal, unless I get a new body.”

"Can you save Yuxia?" Baekhyun whispers.

"No," Yixing shakes his head, "I cannot bring people back from the dead. I never could. If I could, I would have, but I cannot."

"Okay," Baekhyun replies, throwing one last glance to Yuxia. He had been planning to ask her out, after this case had been solved, before he had been removed from the force. They had both been married to their work already, so they might as well get married to each other. He turns to look at Yixing. "The police is going to have a field day when they find this place."

Yixing tilts his head to one side. "Why let them find it?"

Baekhyun waves a hand to Yuxia.

Yixing shrugs uncaringly, even dismissively.

"Do you still remember the other gods?" Baekhyun asks abruptly.

"Yes," Yixing answers honestly. "When they grew old, they married mortal men and woman, they married each other, even, but I still looked the same. We had the suspicion that I was the only true immortal.

"And I left. I couldn't bear the sight of them leaving me. I did not want to have to heal my own broken heart."

"They were the only people you ever loved," Baekhyun murmurs.

"Perhaps," Yixing answers. "Are you psychoanalyzing me?"

"What was the Light God's name?" Baekhyun asks, as if he hadn't heard Yixing's question. "You were the one who hid his identity, put more effort into hiding his name than you did your own. It's almost like you didn't actually want your followers to find the Light God's descendants."

"Does it matter? You know his last name is Byun." Yixing says lightly, "He married the Fire God. They found a surrogate and had five lovely children."

Baekhyun shrugs. "Maybe it doesn't. What's going to happen to you now?"

"I don't think anyone would want to worship me, after the police goes through this place," Yixing shrugs. "These group of people are not exactly subtle in their admiration of me."

"So you'll be mortal." Baekhyun says, "Just like all the other gods were."

Yixing shrugs.

"It'll be fun," Baekhyun shrugs. "Something that you haven't done before."

“Being human is difficult,” Yixing finally says.

“Think of it as a long, challenging game,” Baekhyun agrees. “I’ll make it easy for you.”

Yixing chuckles drily, “I might need a tutorial stage for the rest of this short, human life.”

Baekhyun smirks. “I’ll be your narrator, if you don’t get annoyed by my voice.”

“You’re gonna be there, hmm?” Baekhyun can see the flicker of fear pass through Yixing’s eyes, but it is a mere flicker. “Sounds fun.”


End file.
